Discipline Priest Healing Mythic+ Tips — Shadowlands 9.2
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Discipline Priest in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.
Discipline Priest in Mythic+
Discipline Priests have received several changes that make the spec
more interesting in dungeons. With the addition of a proper AoE dps tool in
Mind Sear, some new utility in the form of
Mind Soothe and many
other adjustments, Discipline is slated to be a very solid option.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.
For assistance with gearing your Discipline Priest for Mythic+ or other content, please take a look at our gearing guide.
Discipline Priest Mythic+ Rotation
The primary difference between healing in dungeons versus raids is that a
single cast of Power Word: Radiance covers the entire group. Due to this,
the concept of ramping does not exist as it does for raiding. This allows
Discipline to be a much more reactive spec like other healers. We can still
benefit greatly from applying shields/damage reductions early, but it is much
easier to heal unexpected damage comparatively.
Discipline's healing rotation remains the same for Normal, Heroic, and Mythic dungeons. For more information about the Discipline Priest healing rotation, refer back to the Rotation page.
Discipline Priest Utility
Discipline Priests have a unique toolkit that can allow us to heal, while also providing a substantial amount of damage. For Mythic+, added damage is a strong factor when considering any healer and Discipline does not need to sacrifice much healing to contribute damage, making us a very enticing choice for pushing Mythic+ keys. In addition to the damage we provide while healing, we also bring several damage reduction cooldowns, some strong utility, and the ability to dispel enemies.
Rapture, when used, will empower any
Power Word: Shield casts while you have the buff active. These shields are incredibly potent and can be used pro-actively to prevent large incoming damage or reactively to stabilize a group. It can also help you during periods of high movement.
Desperate Prayer is a personal cooldown that increases your health by 25% and also heals you for that amount. This cooldown is ideal to use in a pinch and has a relatively short cooldown.
Pain Suppression is a 40% damage reduction cooldown that can, and should, be used pro-actively when possible. One situation to use this cooldown in would be when you can anticipate damage to prevent your tank from being 1-shot, such as by bosses on Tyrannical.
Power Word: Barrier provides you with a great group-wide damage reduction cooldown, provided people stand within it. Use this on high group damage in boss encounters or during trash. Do not be afraid to use this as an extra tank cooldown in situations where it is not needed for the group.
Fade can provide a small damage reduction to yourself, assuming you have the
Translucent Image conduit. This conduit can turn your Fade into a personal cooldown, in addition to the threat removal mechanic it provides as baseline.
Dispel Magic allows you to dispel beneficial buffs from enemies. This can be extremely useful depending on the specific dungeon you are attempting, as many enemies use spells or abilities on themselves that make a pull significantly harder unless you have the ability to remove it./li>
Purify dispels all Magic and Disease effects from friendly targets.
Mass Dispel remains a really useful ability to have in our arsenal. Dispelling is very important in Shadowlands, especially with the adjustment allowing
Bursting to be both single and Mass Dispelled, nearly trivializing the affix. Mass Dispel also allows for both offensive and defensive dispels.
Leap of Faith pulls a friendly party member towards you. It is not that useful generally, but can sometimes save someone.
Mind Control is good to deal with
Bolstering if you really do not want a mob in the pack to get Bolstering stacks. While mobs are Mind Controlled, they can not get affected by Bolstering.
Psychic Scream fears up to 5 enemies close to you for 8 seconds, but damage can break this early. Psychic Scream is primarily used as an AoE interrupt in dungeons.
Shackle Undead should be used any time a dungeon has relevant Undead creatures.
Shining Force can be rather beneficial to deal with the
Necrotic and
Sanguine affixes, due to the requirement of knocking back and slowing enemies. You can find more on these affixes below.
Mind Soothe reduces the range in which Humanoid or Dragonkin targets will begin attacking you or an ally. This ability can be maintained on multiple enemies at the same time and can help facilitate the ability to skip entire packs in specific dungeons.
Power Infusion, while having solid potential as a personal cooldown to assist in heavy healing situations, also presents itself as a potential utility tool. Being able to use this on your allies to amp their Haste by a significant amount during their cooldowns can significantly increase your group's DPS during difficult pulls.
Mythic+ Talents for Discipline Priests
Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time. For more information on talents, please refer back to the talents page.
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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Talent Discussion
Level 15 — While Schism can see some situational play,
in most cases
Twist of Fate will be your go to talent on this row.
Level 25 — Angelic Feather is the best talent in nearly all
situations due to the increased movement speed for both yourself and your
allies.
Masochism can see play in very high keys (20+), but is usually
not recommended unless you have a very specific reason to take it.
Level 30 — While Mindbender can be decent in some
circumstances, we recommend utilizing
Power Word: Solace as your default
pick as the overall mana and dps returns from the 2 talents are similar and
solace leaves you with
Shadowfiend as another powerful cooldown.
Level 35 — All three talents on this row have situational uses,
however we suggest primarily using Shining Force, as it is a reliable
option for controlling dangerous enemies.
Level 40 — Sins of the Many is the strongest option on this row
due to adding to our overall damage and
Atonement healing.
Shadow Covenant has the potential to be situationally stronger, but
carries a significant risk with the Holy school lockout shutting down a large
number of important utilities and reactive cooldowns.
Level 45 — Both Purge the Wicked and
Divine Star are
competitive options on this tier. Your decision between the two will likely
come down to how often your party can stay stacked up enough for you to
hit the majority of them per cast of Divine Star. If the dungeon requires you
to stay more spread out or you cannot trust your party to stay grouped enough,
Purge the Wicked is still a competitive option.
Level 50 — Lenience is the strongest choice, as it provides
considerable damage reduction throughout the course of a dungeon and the
other options available on this row are either near useless or provide
significant downsides in mythic plus.
Mythic+ Affixes
The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Shadowlands has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.
There are three weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix is available instantly at level two and three, the second affix starts at level four, the third affix is enabled at level seven, and finally the seasonal affix is at level ten.
Tier One Affixes
Fortified — Non-boss enemies have 20% more health and
inflict up to 30% increased damage. Focus on helping provide damage during
trash packs and try to learn which packs need your attention more than others.
Certain enemies have buffs that need to be dispelled. You can use
Mind Control for specific enemies to buff your allies. The goal with
Fortified is to focus on as much crowd control as possible. Having healing
cooldowns ready and available for trash packs will prove beneficial.
Tyrannical — Boss enemies have 40% more health and
inflict up to 15% increased damage. On most dungeon boss encounters, we will be
able to focus heavy damage on the boss, while still healing our group.
The importance of quickly killing bosses on Tyrannical is high, and Discipline
brings quite a few tools to the table to help with that.
Tier Two Affixes
Bolstering — When any non-boss enemy dies, its death cry
empowers nearby allies, increasing their maximum health and damage by 20%. This
has a 30 yard range. There really is not much you can do to help besides
switching targets to help damage higher health enemies. If you get 1-2 highly
bolstered enemies, be ready to cast
Pain Suppression or even
Rapture /
Power Word: Barrier if it is needed.
Raging — Non-boss enemies enrage at 30% health remaining,
dealing 100% increased damage until defeated. Conversely to
Bolstering, you would want to help damage down specific enemies
one at a time to avoid the increased damage done and reduce the healing
required on your team. If for some reason the pack is AoE’d down and you have
several low health enemies, be ready to use your cooldowns such as
Pain Suppression,
Rapture or
Power Word: Barrier to
counter the damage.
Sanguine — When slain, non-boss enemies leave behind a
lingering pool of ichor that heals their allies and damages players. The pools
left on the ground have two specific issues that need to be dealt with. Firstly,
and the most obvious, is your group members (specifically melee DPS) taking
damage after killing an enemy; be ready to spot heal these players up quickly.
Secondly, enemies that are casting might stand in these pools, which will heal
them. It is highly recommended to talent into
Shining Force for this
affix to ensure that you can knock the enemies back out of the pools and reduce
the additional time it takes to kill them.
Bursting — When slain, non-boss enemies explode, causing
all players to suffer damage over 4 seconds (this effect stacks). With the
ability to dispel this effect (with both
Purify and
Mass Dispel) this affix should not provide much danger unless managed
horribly. Casting
Rapture and
covering the party in
Power Word: Shield will mitigate a large amount of
stacks on its own.
Power Word: Barrier is also an extremely strong tool
in reducing the damage taken to a more manageable level. After you have
utilized these two tools, cast
Shadow Mend on targets that are still at
risk of dying. In severe situations,
Pain Suppression can be used to
ensure you keep a single target alive.
Inspiring — causes random enemies throughout the dungeon
to gain a buff granting other enemies within 15 yards of them crowd control
immunity. Utilizing crowd control on the Inspiring enemy themselves can be a
viable option, as they do not give themselves immunity. This allows you to pull
the remainder of the pack away from the aura and utilize crowd control. Keep
an eye out for Undead Inspiring mobs that you can utilize
Shackle Undead
on.
Spiteful causes an enemy to spawn whenever any mob dies. This
enemy will fixate a random player and attempt to melee them for massive damage.
They will rapidly lose their health as they stay alive, so throwing crowd
control into them until they die on their own is preferred.
Shining Force
and
Psychic Scream are very valuable tools to assist with controlling
these.
Tier Three Affixes
Necrotic — All enemies' melee attacks apply a stacking
blight that inflicts damage over time and reduces healing received. Healing
your target after they get somewhere between 10-15 stacks of the debuff becomes
nearly impossible. Each stack of the Necrotic Rot debuff accounts for 2% less
healing taken. At 10-15 stacks, your healing is reduced by 20-30% and the
effectiveness of healing versus working on helping the tank drop stacks swaps.
Focus on DPSing to kill the enemy rather than trying to heal the tank. Keep in
mind that your absorbs will be limited in effectiveness by this debuff, as
well.
Pain Suppression is helpful in preventing a death, since damage
reductions are not impacted by this affix.
Shining Force is extremely
helpful in providing a knockback when the tank is attempting to drop the stacks
of the debuff.
Leap of Faith is worth considering to pull the tank away
from the enemies, helping to drop his stacks. The good news is, Necrotic Rot
stacks will drop automatically once you leave combat.
Volcanic — While in combat, enemies periodically cause
gouts of flame to erupt beneath the feet of distant players. This affix is
fairly easy to avoid as a Discipline Priest, due to our ability to heal on the
move. The issue you will run into here is when other players are getting hit
frequently by the ability. Make sure to be ready to top off those who get hit
quickly to avoid extra deaths.
Explosive — While in combat, enemies periodically summon
Explosive Orbs that will detonate if not destroyed. We can actually help quite a
bit with this affix, given our ability to provide damage. If you are running
Power Word: Solace, you can help kill the orb quickly with an instant
cast ability. It is recommended to keep an eye out for these orbs and break
away from healing to help destroy them, if it is needed.
Quaking — Periodically, all players emit a shockwave,
inflicting damage and interrupting nearby allies. This affix can be somewhat
annoying due to the spread requirement and interrupt on your casts. Be sure to
not be casting when this ability finishes to avoid being spell locked. If
players are stacked when this goes off, you may have to follow up with some
quick healing to top off the group.
Grievous — When injured below 90% health, players will
suffer increasing damage over time until healed above 90% health. Direct heals
will remove a stack of Grievous from the target. Attempt to play as
aggressively as possible to ensure people do not drop within range of Grievous
to begin with. When multiple players have Grievous at the same time, try to
focus single target heals on the targets with high stacks to keep the damage
manageable.
Penance can be used to remove multiple stacks with a
single cast. Groups with strong offheals can provide a significant benefit
during Grievous weeks.
Storming — While in combat, tornadoes will periodically
spawn and move around its spawn area for approximately 10 seconds before
despawning. Getting hit by one of these tornadoes will deal damage to you and
throw you into the air. There is not much specific advice to give for this affix
except to avoid getting hit.
Seasonal Affix
The Season 3 affix for mythic plus is Encrypted. This affix will
cause enemies throughout the dungeon to possess special relics that when
destroyed, grant powerful buffs. Check out our general 9.2 mythic plus
guide for more information on how to handle this affix.
Legion Timewalking Affix: Infernal
Legion Timewalking dungeons will come with their own unique affix called
Infernal. This affix spawns beacons throughout the dungeon that
will spawn a unique Legion Commander along with additional enemies when
activated. To complete the dungeon, you must kill all three Commanders.
You can learn more about the Infernal affix or any others in
our full Mythic+ Affix guide below.
Changelog
- 22 Feb. 2022: Page updated for Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Added Legion Timwalking affix & updated talent section.
- 27 Jul. 2021: Added Mythic Plus boon rankings
- 29 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Removed outdated references.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Removed affixes that no longer exist. Added new Affixes.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Priest Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide is written and maintained by Clandon, Healer in Incarnate as well as staff and theorycrafter at Warcraft Priests (join them on Discord or on their website) and is reviewed by the other staff at Warcraft Priests and notable members of the healing community.
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